All Stories

This year, our journalists and photojournalists worked across 12 countries, four U.S. states, and two disputed regions, bringing readers a visual documentation of the issues we covered.

Environmental stress from extreme weather is altering the chemical composition of medicinal plants, changing their therapeutic properties, and making traditional remedies less predictable or effective.

Their stories surfaced in fragments, often only within families. A coalition led by Asian American women is pushing Congress to make them part of the official record.

“We’re talking about a nation that is not only highly repressive but also the second-largest economy globally,” said Sarah Cook, who worked for years for Freedom House, which defends civil liberties around the globe. “This creates an unprecedented situation.”

“I never had to use a medical cream in my life,” says Biren Bhuiyan. Pointing to the skin ailments which he now treats with store-bought medicine, he says, “There used to be abundant medicinal plants around us, but we can’t find them here. We are dependent on hospitals now.” 

Earlier this year, I embarked on a probing trip to a small coastal area in Southeast Asia to see what this ancient wood-eater could offer us: about resilience, and the many ways life endures, adapts, and sustains others.

Momand learned only two days later that it was a nationwide blackout. Momand and his family have lost approximately 350,000 Afghanis (around $5,340 USD) — one of their worst losses in more than a decade.

In his new book, The Breath of the Gods: The History and Future of the Wind, New York Times bestselling author Simon Winchester chronicles the myriad ways in which the wind plays a role in our everyday lives — from cataclysmic to messianic to downright mundane. “Wind, in short, seems a universal,” Winchester writes. “Air in motion finds its way into just about every activity and inactivity of man, beast, plant, and thing that exists in the world above its waters.”

With the winter chills likely to intensify and spike energy bills, equitable access to clean energy upgrades is more urgent than ever, especially for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, who were deprioritized under the Trump administration and remain underserved.